Re: WHY do I still want peace with my nada?

October 24, 2010

Peace is a very normal thing to want and something I know I will always yearn

for on some level from my nada. I think peace, unfortunately, is something most

of our nada's never achieve within themselves. Therefore, I think this keeps us

from every finding any peace from them but only from within ourselves in

accepting that what we have gotten from them is probably the best they could

have given us. As frustrating as that is, maybe that acceptance is where we can

find our peace.

It also sounds like you are struggling with the decision of comfort care for

your nada or treating her more aggressively. Maybe your mother's physician can

help clarify her health status for you a little more. This has become

increasingly a more complicated decision making process as we approach later

life. Do you have power of attorney for healthcare for you nada? If so, it

sounds like it may be helpful to set up a meeting with you mother's physician,

social workers and any other staff that would be helpful in order to reveiw her

plan of care. These kinds of meetings are usually most helpful as you get

everyone's input and they can come to the meetings having gathered their

information.

patinage

October 25, 2010

Marilyn, I once saw an energy worker who was also trained in developmental

psychology who got it the best of any professional I saw. She said everybody

gets one chance to get " filled up " in childhood and if that doesn't happen it

never can because once we are grown it is no longer appropriate for another

adult to give to us in the way a mother would to a child. Her response made

sense to me but was also quite depressing. She was big on doing inner child

work, imagining the inner child doing exercises which I never quite got the hang

of but I think could still help. Have you tried any inner child work? At the

end of the day I think we will *always* want to have the deficits rectified, the

hurts made up for, always. And since BPD is for life it can never happen.

Guess that was a rather depressing response, it's a hard issue for me

too...maybe others will shed more light.

About the doctor though, my first thought was that it is possible that she did

discuss having things tested with your nada and she refused. So because of

HIPPA law she couldn't tell you why it wasn't tested, knew she looked

incompetent w/o you knowing the full story but couldn't say. Right now you

don't have legal rights to the private medical info right?

>

> As most of you know my nada is 89 1/2 years old now and has been going down

hill by inches for over a year. She is now on her last legs and suffering

terribly not only emotionally but physically as well of course. The latest is

that she now has weakness in her LEFT hand and arm as well as her right; she

can't walk hardly at all; can't stand for more than a few minutes; keeps falling

down; can't hold food down; is very tired; has a constant cough which sounds to

me like fluid in her lungs and can't eat much at all. Her heart is very weak

(this from her doctor's mouth); she has Vitamin B-12 deficiency; Vitamin D

Deficiency; is severely underweight; diabetic which she does not control; has

had numerous transient strokes and bladder incontinence as well as two hard

goose sized lumps (one under her right arm and one behind her right knee) which

blew up out of nowhere. About two months ago a huge hematoma blew up from under

her right arm where the lump is and reached around to her right breast nipple.

It was so large, she couldn't put her arm down! Of course it HID anything

showing up on her mammography and they never did an MRI on her. Not her regular

doctor nor the breast surgeon could tell me WHY that would happen to her. The

breast surgeon did a needle aspiration and removed all the fluid in her office,

but upon my asking the surgeon myself if she sent the fluid to a lab to be

tested, she sheepishly said no and all of a sudden had to 'get off the phone'.

I found that strange unless they already know she has lymphoma or some other

cancer and given her age and conditions they absolutely know she would not make

it through any surgery or any chemotherapy or radiation therapy so why bother.

I don't know. Not that 95% of me doesn't want to see nada pass quickly, quietly

and peacefully in her sleep and SOON for both our sakes, but a tiny part of me

thinks the doctors should DO something, but in reality she won't listen to them

anyway - though this is difficult to watch even though I certainly do not like

nada or respect her for the way she has led her life and treated everyone in it

including me most of the time. Still she is my mother and I love her as much as

I can love someone like her. She has dementia also but it is not severe (though

she is rational some times and totally irrational and living in her bizarre

fantasy world with such a screwed up version of reality and what really went on

in our lives it is insane). To her I am still five years old and it makes me

nuts.

>

> So why do I want peace with my nada now? Why do I still look at times for

admiration; respect or all the other things I hardly EVER got from her as a

child. I guess my inner child wants that because my adult certainly knows it

isn't going to happen. I only see glimpses of a rational being there and these

are fewer and fewer with each passing day.

>

> Most of my friends don't get it at all. They can't comprehend what I went

through or am going through. Like I said I have come to a place where I don't

expect them to get it and I just look for compassion elsewhere in this group

because all of you DO get it as you lived it just as I did and do, but I wish I

could just come to terms with the fact I am never going to get what I want from

nada now or probably ever. Any thoughts on this?

>

October 25, 2010

I think wanting peace is a sign of a healthy mind.

I think it comes from being functional in other aspects of your life and craving

the same serenity in all relationships...it's only that those of a bpd that

never seem to get there.

My grandmother had a tumor appear under her am before she passed away, we

noticed it in one of her last hospitalizations before she went under the care of

hospice at home. I could never get a straight answer from anyone about this

tumor, it was the size of an orange and only became evident when she lost

weight. She was diagnosed with parkinson's and alzheimers and apparently at that

late stage that she was at when they know the patient doesn't have long to live

they apparently are reluctant to treat. I experienced the same awkward silences

and reluctance to discuss it and doctors and nurses suddenly having to leave the

room. I suspect it has something to do with insurance not being willing to cover

any treatment for someone who either has a terminal diagnoses with another

condition or someone who for whatever reason isn't thought to have long to live.